Personal communication systems (PCS) operate using various protocols and standards specifications that have been bought or licensed for various customer/geographic locations. Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT) and Wireless Customer Premise Equipment (WCPE) are examples of PCS protocols. The DECT specification is a communication protocol defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The DECT specification uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Time Division Duplexing (TDD) to allow multiple Radio Frequency communications links from one dedicated radio frequency (RF) transceiver. Communication systems, such as DECT and WCPE, use signaling channels, such as B and D Channels, to support the communication linking process. Each of the separate links includes B and D Channel data. The DECT radio ports (or base stations) interface to a central controller via a digital network interface that also supports B and D Channel data. The digital network interface also supports a C-Channel which is a separate channel of signaling bits used for embedded operations. This channel is available in Primary and Basic Rate interfaces.
WCPE systems are governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules for unlicensed personal communication service (FCC Part 15, Subpart D). In both DECT and WCPE systems, remote radio ports must be in multiframe, frame, slot, and bit alignment with one another. This alignment requirement results in the system controller transmitting a multiframe number and a synchronization pulse to each radio port simultaneously. Achieving this simultaneous transmission using a software approach is difficult because it requires synchronizing a software message to a hardware event. This would involve message priority schemes and detailed timing analysis of software operating system latencies. The issue is further complicated by the fact that the message must be broadcast to all remote radio ports in the system.
Hence, there is a need for an apparatus and technique which performs multiframe synchronization of all radio ports within a PCS system preferably without any additional software overhead.